It would be a mistake to assume that we dodged a bullet with the fiery end to North Korea’s Unha-3 missile launch at the Dongchang-ri facility one minute into its fight. In fact, this was a test flight, and while missile engineers always hope for fully successful flights, they also understand that there’s plenty to be learned from failures as well. The reality is that however this launch ended, it portends an exponential advance in North Korea’s military arsenal. While compared to modern solid-fueled rockets the liquid-fueled Unha-3 may be operationally impractical as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, it provides a perfect test of the staging required for a long-range missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead. North Korea’s missile provocation transcends mere reputational costs to the United States and its allies – it poses real military threats that must be addressed through defensive military means.
A brief précis about the North’s existing missile programs helps to understand why a putative satellite launch poses such danger. North Korea’s Taepodong 1 is a two-stage ballistic missile with a maximum range of about 2,000 kilometers for a 1,000 kilogram payload. Its first stage appears similar to the No Dong rocket, and its second stage is probably similar to the Hwasong-6 rocket (both derived from the Soviet “Scud” family of missiles).
With a 1,000 kilogram payload, the Taepodong 1 can notionally reach Japan and Taiwan. The Taepodong 2 is a two-stage ballistic missile with a maximum range of about 3,700 kilometers with a 1,000 kilogram payload. Its first stage is probably based on that of the Chinese Dongfeng 3 (CSS-2) rocket developed in the 1960s. The Taepodong 2 second stage may be identical to the first stage of the Taepodong 1 (i.e., the No Dong rocket). With a 1,000 kilogram payload, the Taepodong 2 can reach Guam and Taiwan.
Although few technical details are known about the Unha-3, recent photographs suggest that its dimensions may be identical to those of the Unha 2, which is a three-stage missile with a maximum range of about 6,000 kilometers for a 1,000 kilogram payload and about 10,000 kilometers for a 500 kilogram payload. Its first stage is similar to that of the Taepodong 2. Its second stage appears to be similar to the Soviet R-26 missile, and its third stage appears to be similar to the second stage of the Iranian Safir-2 rocket.
With a 1,000 kilogram payload, the Unha-2 already can reach Guam and some locations in Alaska. Ominously, with a 500 kilogram payload, the Unha-2 can strike any location in Hawaii or Alaska, as well as the entire West Coast and most of the of the Northwestern United States (as far south and east as Colorado).
Because the trend lines are bad and the situation is getting worse, cutting food aid and pursuing U.N. Security Council resolutions are insufficient, even feeble, responses. They may provide some room for venting and thereby keep a lid on tensions, but they will do absolutely nothing to retard North Korea’s unrelenting ambition of building a long-range nuclear weapons program.
North Korea’s missile exhibitionism has exposed serious tactical mistakes in United States policy, and a sober assessment of North Korea policy assumptions should therefore produce both a new strategic approach and strengthen the U.S. defensive posture in Northeast Asia.
Tactical mistake number one is Washington’s fixation on the quixotic objective of persuading North Korea to negotiate away its limited plutonium stockpile sufficient for 6 to 10 weapons. Coercive diplomacy works best when seeking limited goals, not one that threatens regime survival. However, we have persevered with a maximalist goal despite our lack of leverage or credibility when it comes to meting out punishment for noncompliance.
Meanwhile, North Korea has in all probability used Houdini-like misdirection to expand a more advanced highly-enriched uranium (HEU) weapon program, one that would provide for a larger nuclear stockpile, be harder to detect, and be easier to proliferate off the peninsula. In November 2010, when visiting U.S. experts were shown the North’s surprising achievements in fashioning an HEU program, the United States simply doubled down on its preexisting determination to pursue denuclearization as the supreme policy objective. America’s staunch ally in South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s government fully embraced the same approach.
But without a realistic means of achieving denuclearization, our efforts only emit a smokescreen for North Korea’s ambitions. This false labor highlights a second tactical mistake: namely, becoming ever-more reliant on China to tamp down the North’s nuclear ambitions. Outsourcing the problem has presented China with a choice between pacifying a screaming baby (North Korea) and calming down a nonplussed parent (the United States). Given such a choice, China has found it easier to restrain the United States than North Korea. Consequently, China grows in importance, while U.S. influence is at risk of receding.
A third tactical mistake concerns the use of humanitarian assistance as a bargaining tool over the North’s nuclear programs. Humanitarian assistance should be given only on humanitarian grounds, and food provides no leverage vis-à-vis a goal vital to regime survival like a nuclear-armed missile. While the Obama administration wished to keep nutritional assistance separate from nuclear talks (and the food was a request from North Korea), the administration played into Pyongyang’s negotiating tactics by delaying humanitarian assistance that should have begun careful distribution months earlier. Meanwhile, the absence of humanitarian aid workers on the ground in North Korea is hurting malnourished and at-risk elements of North Korea and not the regime itself.
A fourth mistake on the part of U.S. negotiators has been to allow North Korea to wriggle out of a firm verbal commitment not to launch any missiles, including those that might send a satellite into orbit. We believe U.S. negotiators who say that they made this explicit in the processing of striking the moratorium on nuclear and missile tests. We can also point to the international consensus – including China and Russia – that existing U.N. Security Council resolutions also prohibit the missile program that the North has so flamboyantly rolled out in the past month. But giving the North sufficient grey area to claim it was all a misunderstanding and that a weather satellite is harmless has made the United States look downright foolish.
Finally, we are the on verge of a fifth tactical error by not following up our admonitions with serious action. Declaring the missile launch to be unacceptable does more harm than good if our only responses are rhetorical blandishments and unenforced sanctions.
The result of these and other tactical errors is that the United States is gradually paying reputational costs and teaching North Korea to ignore our warnings. Consider the fact that only several weeks ago President Barack Obama put U.S. credibility in the hands of a multilateral nuclear summit in Seoul that was overshadowed by the missile diplomacy of a military regime led by a man still in his twenties. In announcing the missile launch as a breach of contract and unacceptable, the United States offered little evidence that it would pursue options that the regime in Pyongyang might regret. Instead, Washington continued to look to Beijing to crack down on its ally, an action China has simply not been willing or able to do.
The United States needs a fresh assessment and a new long-range strategy for ending the threats posed by North Korea. However, that strategy will take some years to develop and execute. Given the rationale for doing something, there are dramatic near-term military technical and operational alternatives for action available to the United States.
It’s too risky to pursue overt regime change in North Korea to stem Pyongyang’s provocations. However, the United States can defeat North Korea’s unacceptable missile program by developing low technology risk, boost-phase intercept capabilities based on proven Cold War propulsion technologies. Specifically, the United States and its allies can plug the gap in current missile defenses, which address mid-phase (SM-3 missiles) and terminal phase (PAC-3) but not missiles in their ascent or boost phase. Previous attempts to build boost-phase interceptors failed because of immature laser technologies, impractical operational concepts, and exorbitant cost.
This gap allows nations such as North Korea and Iran to challenge the United States and regional allies and friends with their medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile programs, and eventually with their intercontinental-range missiles. To fix this shortcoming, a high-speed (~3.5 to 5.0 km/s), two-stage, hit-to-kill interceptor missile, launched from a Predator-type UAV can defeat many of these ballistic missile threats in their boost phase.
A physics-based simulator can estimate the capabilities of a high-altitude, long endurance UAV-launched boost-phase interceptor (HALE BPI) launched from an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet. Enabled by the revolution in UAVs, this proposed boost-phase interceptor, based on off-the-shelf technology, can be deployed in operationally feasible stations on the periphery of North Korea.
Using the HALE BPI planning software developed specifically to be easy to manipulate by non-technical operational and strategic planners, initial conservative estimates suggest that HALE BPI is technically and operationally viable against a range of realistic North Korean missile threats to Japan, Guam, and Hawaii.
The next time North Korea wants to flaunt its international commitments and thereby place in jeopardy regional security, it should know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the United States and its allies will shoot down that missile. Adding serious boost-phase intercept capabilities, while strengthening U.S. allied interoperability, can make the difference between advancing a dangerous North Korean capability and offering a stern lesson to Pyongyang about the resolve of the United States and its allies.
Patrick Cronin is Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Matthew Giarra is a mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Paul S. Giarra is the president of Global Strategies & Transformation, a national defense and strategic planning consultancy.
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ChrisR
I absolutely agree with the article. If N. Korea decides to launch a missle of any sorts again we should forwarn them that it will be shot down let them know their is a blanket of security and they can no longer simply launch missles out over the pacific.
George Ronald Adkisson
If you lived somewhere else geographically…would the politicians charge you for their fear established there in Washington DC? My guess is they exclusively want every military item including drones to protect themselves first…my reasoning is due to the fact that uS politicians have bomb shelters and the general population of the uS currently does not.
It’s really interesting seeing the changes since police unions took over police forces across the country…In the 60′s, small communities like Harriman, Tennessee 37748 even had shelters for their school children.They did not take one federal taxed penny for their schools from the federal government’s pot either.They accomplished much more all by themselves.
Everyone enjoy the days…
ChrisH
Reverse MAD.
Simply launch an ICBM full of conventional explosive at the launch site.
What’s NK going to do. NK has the limited options. It can’t afford an out war with SK cause that will lead to regime change.
China won’t retaliate by sending by sending ICBM’s. Simply inform the Chinese an ICBM is currently traveling to NK. We intimidate two birds for the price of one.
John Chan
@ChrisH,
Why didn’t USA government do as you said? Are American ICBM fake stuff, because the MIC, the congress and the US government pocket all the money instead of actually building the ICBMs?
It seems American is a real paper tiger.
Arj
Technology is advancing so rapidly, that gadgets are becoming smaller and more powerful – We even have a spy plane as small as 3 grams (source: http://spygadgets.blogspot.com/2009/11/three-gram-spy-plane.html).
In the future, we will soon have smaller sized drones that have the capability to relay information to a master drone. Crashes, if any, will be minimized.
Brad
I find most of the points in this article troubling, others I find just plain silly.
First the NK ballistic missile test in 2009 made it about half way to Hawaii before failing. The most recent test barely made it over the water. That does not present a “worrying trendline” as the authors stated.
Also the Avenger interceptor idea is just silly. First, the speeds they cite would require a much larger missile for the range that would be needed. There is no way even a souped up Avenger could carry something like that, especially off the deck of a carrier. Second, I wonder how China would react to such a senario, with a bunch of “mega missile interceptor super drones” (a creation of the authors) buzzing around off their shores. This would push NK further into China’s arms and cause them to further deepen their military alliance against us, and China DOES have nuclear missiles that can reach the US.
I think these authors have watched too many bad 80′s action films.
Mark Gubrud
I doubt that a “Predator-type” drone would be able to carry the large missiles that would be needed for a boost-phase intercept. These would be large drones.
The drones would need refueling every 1 to 3 days. Aerial refueling is possible, but the drones would still need to be brought down for maintenance.
Drones regularly crash or stray off course. They are easy targets for ground, sea, or air-launched anti-aircraft missiles. Either a malfunctioning drone or an attack on a drone in disputed airspace could easily be misinterpreted by either side and lead to further escalation.
The answer to the challenge posed by North Korea is not to create an even more tense and unstable military confrontation at its borders. We may not be comfortable with their possession of credible means of deterrence. But we may have no better alternative than to get used to it. After all, this regime obviously values its own survival above everything else. Therefore it is unlikely to commit suicide, given a choice.
ACT
someone actually commented on this on aviationintel.com:
“….It is important to note that given the design of the rocket, it was never capable of being used as an ICBM. It’s maximum payload is simply too small. It would not be possible to redesign it for such a mission either, not to mention the fueling time required for such a liquid fueled rocket seriously impairs its use as a second strike delivery system. There’s a very good reason that modern ICBMs are solid fueled.
If, hypothetically, the US or the South Koreans did shoot it down, it would only increase tensions with one of the least predictable states in the world. I can’t see any self respecting politician authorising such an attack, even if UN resolution 1718 could be used as a legal basis. Can you even imagine how the Chinese would consider such an act, and so close to their shores? It would set a very, very bad precedent. Realistically, only shooting down debris could be tolerated.”
Broncazonk
It’s so patently obvious that the US downed/destroyed the Unha-3 rocket with a technology far beyond the YABL-1 Airborne Laser system the issue is not even in doubt. Based on the information we have, the rocket failed EXACTLY the way a theater ballistic missile would fail after being hit by a defense system designed to destroy rockets in the boost phase.
Does anyone REALLY believe the DF-21D missile would be allowed to be deployed without the US countering that “threat?” The US has been working on the issue and technology since Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars program.
You guys are soo naive.
Bronc
ACT
this is entirely speculation, and the reality is that while North Korea does have a large army and a nascent nuclear weapons program, both of them are no true threat to anyone save for South Korea. Any attempt by North Korea to attack South Korea or any nation it considers a threat would bring a rather nasty hammer down on the nut that is the Pyongyang regime. That the rocket was launched at all, whatever its purpose, amounts to more childish saber-rattling. On both sides.
Matt
“Any attempt by North Korea to attack South Korea or any nation it considers a threat would bring a rather nasty hammer down on the nut that is the Pyongyang regime.”
Then why wasn’t there some sort of retaliation for the attacks on the South Korean island and warship which killed 50 South Koreans?
I am unaware of a single retaliation in the long history of direct acts of war commited by the North. It is the classic case of a bully getting away with it because the victim is too scared of some “crazy reaction”. The North Koreans are masters at bullying, they must all learn this in order to survive in their own land.
The larger attrocity is the genocide commited on the North Koreans which has resulted in millions starved to death, tortured and killed. The North does not need any food aide…they have large reserves set aside for the military to use in an invasion of the South.
a_canadian_observer
@Matt: “The North Koreans are masters at bullying”
No. They’re just puppets. The (puppet) master is its huge neighbor.
Alex
If I remember correctly, South Korea responded to the North’s shelling of a border island with a barrage of their own.
PeterDownUnder
The world has watched many greater atrocities and stood idly by. Sovereignty over human rights I believe.
Mark Gubrud
The South Koreans did return fire in the Yeongpyeong shelling. The “rather nasty hammer” that would come down on North Korea in the event of a major attack by the North which compelled such a response would not prevent a similarly nasty hammer coming down on the people and cities of the South, which is why avoiding escalation is wise for all sides. There is little doubt that a major war launched by North Korean regime would end with its destruction, but much else (and many innocent people) would suffer as well.
Matt
Counter artillery fire was given to the North for the Yeongpyeong shelling however this fire was not accurate and there was zero reports of any casualties. The more lethal attack of the South Korean warship which killed 46 was never answered.
There is a big difference between simply returning fire while under attack and actually launching retaliatory attacks. Like a counter offensive is different from defending your position.
I’m not advocating a massive response but somekind of counter attack would be smart. The North would be forced into limiting their response because they know full well a full scale conflict would end in their demise. Therefore a calculated attack designed to embarrass the regime and deterr future attacks would be successful and would save allied lives and valuable diplomatic efforts in deterring acts of war.
Watching Ground Hog’s Day over and over again in North Korea’s provocations is just patheticly weak. My two cents.
Kangmin Zheng
Agreed. CCP uses NK as a bargaining chip.